MAGICAL THINKING
I was thinking as small children think, as if my thoughts or wishes had the power to reverse the narrative, change the outcome. In my case this disordered thinking had been covert, noticed I think by no one else, hidden even from me, but it had been, in retrospect, both urgent and constant.
—JOAN DIDION
ANOTHER WAY TO REJECT THE REAL WORLD, practiced almost universally in this culture, is to resort to magical thinking.
Magical thinking can be defined at base as the conviction that thinking is equivalent to doing. For example, some believe that anyone can become a writer (actor/painter/athlete), if he or she just dreams it vividly enough. I could fantasize all I want about how great it would be if I were a writer, but if I don’t actually write (and write and write) it ain’t gonna happen. Similarly, I’ve heard too many environmentalists rhapsodize about singing back the salmon; we can all try to sing back the salmon, but if the dams still stand the salmon don’t stand a chance. In both cases, fantasizing turns out to be grossly insufficient.
Because my experience with magical thinking has been more, er, practical than academic—I do it lots, but have never been precisely sure what it is—I looked up some definitions. I found that, to quote one of them, magical thinking “includes such ideas as the law of contagion, correlation equaling causation, the power of symbols and the ability of the mind to affect the physical world.”
Law of contagion? That didn’t help me understand. So I looked that up and found, “Objects or beings in physical contact with each other continue to interact after separation. Everyone you have ever touched has a magical link with you, though it is probably pretty weak unless the contact was intense and/or prolonged or repeated frequently. Magical power is contagious. Naturally, having a part of someone’s body (nails, hair, spit, etc.) gives the best contagion link.”
229 Ah, so now I get it: this is why I need a bit of someone’s hair or fingernail whenever I try to put a hex on him (and also explains the high black market value for Dick Cheney’s nail clippings).
Next: correlation equaling causation. My nieces had larger vocabularies at the age of twelve than they did at the age of one. They also had more cavities. Thus, larger vocabularies cause more cavities. Or here’s another: have you ever noticed that the more firefighters there are at a fire, the larger the fire is and the more damage it causes? Ray Bradbury was right: the damn firefighters sure do cause a lot of damage. And here’s yet another: last week I won two online poker tournaments in the same day, and so the next day I kept wearing what I now presumed to be my lucky socks. I won two that day, and then the day after, and the day after that. I’m still wearing my same lucky socks, and I must admit they stink just a little, but don’t laugh: I’m still winning. And besides, you don’t even want to get me started on you and your lucky underpants.
The next part of the definition is the power of symbols to affect change in the real, physical world. To continue the example from above, that explains the popularity of Dick Cheney voodoo dolls. Since magical thinking is generally considered to be delusional, you can go ahead and get rid of that doll. On second thought, however, I don’t see how it can possibly hurt to stick pins in it; or burn it; or deprive it of sleep; or force it to hold uncomfortable positions for long periods. Give it a try. You never know.
The last aspect of magical thinking is the ability of the mind to affect the physical world. This is the power of positive thinking, or visualization. I know for a fact that visualization doesn’t work. Do you know how I know? Because Dick Cheney’s head hasn’t exploded into a million pieces. If a billion human people and countless nonhuman people wishing him dead isn’t going to do it, then wishing just doesn’t work.
Engaging in magical thinking is not the same as being delusional: the former is a subset of the latter. All magical thinking is delusional, but not all delusions are magical thinking. So, to think that the government serves the interests of living beings over the interests of corporations is delusional, but it is not magical thinking. To write a letter to Dick Cheney politely requesting he do something to stop global warming—or even that he do something that benefits humans over corporations—and to expect this to accomplish something in the real, physical world, is magical thinking.
Perhaps an example from my own life will help. My sole hickey in junior high or high school was the result of magical thinking. Knowing that my romantic experiences in those years consisted almost exclusively of what is technically known as “wishful thinking” (sometimes called “a rich fantasy life,” which meant, and you know I had this all worked out, that if anyone would have ever asked about my relationship life, I could have winked and said, “fantastic,” and I wouldn’t precisely have been lying) might give some clue as to why this would be the case, but it would be a false clue. Instead my hickey involved the Denver Nuggets professional basketball team. I was in ninth grade, and was alone in our family’s living room, drinking water and listening to the radio. My (then) beloved Nuggets were in a tight playoff game. Late in the third quarter they went cold, didn’t score a few times down the court. If they kept this up I knew they’d lose. I had to do something to help. But what? It seemed clear the best thing I could do—really the only thing I could do—was to send positive energy. I did. They still didn’t score. What more could I do? Maybe it would help, I thought, if I manifested this energy through some tangible action, some powerful manifestation of my intent and desire. But what could that be? I took another sip, and the perfect action came to me: I noticed that the glass fit snugly with one edge under my chin and the other over my lower lip, and realized that if I sucked on the glass it would stick to my face (and I could even defy gravity: when I leaned forward and moved away my hand, the glass still stuck!), so as a symbol of my solidarity with the Nuggets I vowed I would keep the glass on my face until they scored again. Evidently the basketball gods didn’t find my offering sufficient, or more likely they were laughing their asses off, calling all the other gods over to watch and saying, “We were going to have David Thompson hit a running one-hander the next time down the court, but let’s stretch this out and see what happens.” The Nuggets didn’t score for several minutes, and even when they did I had no idea what I had done (to myself, not the Nuggets). I didn’t learn until I went into the bathroom and saw myself and my discolored chin in the mirror. At first I was mystified—although I’d seen hickeys on some people’s necks at school, I had no real idea what they were or how precisely one gained them—and then I was horrified. What would everyone think? Overnight, however, I ruminated on the physics and biology of hickeys—of blood coming to the surface of the skin through suction, creating a slight, painless bruise—and a light slowly flickered, then turned on bright inside my head (kind of how it happens when you turn on one of those earth-saving compact fluorescent bulbs) and then suddenly, as is the nature of epiphanies, I understood in perfect (theoretical) detail how one could gain a non-self-administered hickey. Further—and here’s the part that’s delusion instead of magical thinking—I saw, in one blinding flash of insight, that perhaps this could be turned to my advantage, reputation-wise, and disperse or even dispel the common belief at school that I was a nerd. Never mind that I’d never seen a hickey in precisely this location: in my fevered fifteen-year-old mind that was no problem at all: it might just mean that the girl who’d given me this glorious gift was especially daring and avantgarde, with a love so strong she’s willing to risk public scorn (unfortunately, in this case, scorn aimed at me, but we’ll choose to ignore that inconvenient truth) by throwing cultural convention to the wind and expressing her affection in whatever spontaneous manner (and in whatever spontaneous place, as in my chin) she might find appropriate. And no, nobody at school bought that either. Evidently the notion of someone giving me a hickey was as far from the minds of everyone at school as it was from physical reality: only two people seemed to notice; both looked at me concerned, with one asking if I’d had an allergic reaction to food and the other saying that was an unfortunate place to get a bug bite.
Oh, to be fifteen again, and to think with the mind of a fifteen-year-old. Of course these days I’m much more mature, and would never do anything so silly and delusional.
But now you’ll have to excuse me while I go write a letter to my representative. It’s not as bad as it sounds: I have tremendous faith that it’s going to make a difference, mainly because I’m still wearing my lucky socks.
In the 1940s, behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner performed an experiment in which he starved a bunch of pigeons, then put them in a cage that dispensed a small amount of food at regular intervals. The pigeons started to demonstrate odd behavior, repeating the particular motions they happened to be doing when the food was dispensed. Skinner wrote: “One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a ‘tossing’ response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly.” And so on. The birds were, it seemed, confusing correlation for causation:
I was bobbing my head when the food appeared, which means my bobbing caused
the food to appear, which means if I bob my head again more
food will appear.230Clearly, in this perspective, the birds were manifesting magical thinking (I suppose we should be thankful that these scientists deigned to acknowledge that nonhumans can think at all, even if it is magical thinking)—or, to use Skinner’s term, superstition—and many analysts have extrapolated this supposed genesis of superstition from birds to “primitive” humans—them and their rain dances and all of that—and from there to Christians—them and their prayers and all of that—with the strong implication that the only ones free of this sort of magical thinking are the scientists themselves.
Oh really. Shall we talk about giant mirrors in outer space? How about changing the earth’s orbit? How about inventing the internal combustion engine and believing there would be no consequences? How about the commonly held notion that technology will provide some magic bullet that will solve problems caused by, you guessed it, technology? How about the notion that you can live on a planet that you are destroying?
Do you see a relationship between this experiment and everything we’re talking about here? Pigeons don’t exhibit these weird, repetitive motions in nature, but only when they’ve been confined, isolated, deprived, and forced to depend on machines for survival. Since they don’t understand how the machines work, and they don’t know how to escape, they start to believe that their own unrelated thoughts and actions are somehow responsible for what the machines do.
Sound familiar?
It has to do with being powerless (or at the very least perceiving oneself as powerless), and with desperately attempting to find some way that one can influence physical reality from within this frame of powerlessness. For example, I could not quickly hitchhike to Denver, run into the arena, dash onto the court, grab the basketball, and knock down a twenty-five-foot jumper. So instead I sent good vibes, and then stuck a glass on my face. All trying to affect the world in a situation where I was ineffectual. Or here’s another: I can play good poker, and I can get all my chips into the pot with my three-of-a-kind aces, and I can hope that some idiot calls me with his inside straight draw, but I am powerless to prevent the final card from being an eight and winning the pot for him (not that this has ever happened to me, and even if it had happened to me—recently, goddamnit—it wouldn’t make me bitter or anything). So I wear my lucky socks to try to take control of a situation entirely outside of my control.
In those cases—and this was certainly true for the pigeons as well—the events were outside of my control. But even having at least some measure of control doesn’t guarantee I won’t fall into magical thinking. I’ve had flareups of Crohn’s disease during which instead of going to the doctor or at least upping my meds I focused on positive thoughts. Not to say positive thoughts are bad, because of course they can and often do heal, but to think positively instead of acting effectively (presuming that going to the doctor or upping my meds are effective actions) is to engage in magical thinking, and to render myself powerless in situations where I actually am not. I could provide a long list of times when I have for this or that reason chosen (most often unconsciously or at most semi-consciously) to remain powerless and to think magically—which I guess could also be defined as the act of doing whatever it takes to help me gain and maintain the sensation of doing something effective while actually doing nothing, or, to return to a theme of this culture, doing whatever it takes to make sure that precious little me feels good about myself while I do nothing to help the external, real world—rather than to actually do something to rectify or improve the situation. I’m guessing that many of you could provide your own lists.
Are you a magical thinker? I know that too often I am.
With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, let’s play a little game.
If you put a bumper sticker on your hybrid Prius that reads Visualize World Peace in the hope this will bring about world peace, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you buy a hybrid Prius in the hope this will slow global warming, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think you personally not owning a car will significantly slow global warming, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think buying compact fluorescent light bulbs will slow global warming, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you vote in the hope this will change anything—never forget Emma Goldman’s line: “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal”—you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think the government has your best interests at heart, you might just be delusional—or maybe you’re just incredibly stupid, incredibly rich, or both—and if you act upon this belief you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think those in power care about you or what you think, you might just be delusional (or stupid, or rich), and if you act upon this belief, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think sending money to the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, Audubon, World Wildlife Fund, the Environmental Defense Fund, or other big environmental corporations will significantly help the natural world, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think Weyerhaeuser will stop deforesting because you ask nicely, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think Monsanto will stop Monsantoing because you hold signs or sign petitions, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think this culture will stop killing the planet without being forcefully stopped, you might just be delusional, and if you don’t act to stop this culture, then you will be failing in your responsibility as a living being.
Although working within the system is extremely important—we need to do whatever we can to protect life on this planet—if you believe that working within the system is sufficient to stop this omnicidal culture from killing the planet, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think recycling will stop this culture from killing the planet, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think hanging banners (or writing books) will stop this culture from killing the planet, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think giving land to state or federal governments will lead to that land’s protection, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think giving land to the Nature Conservancy or many other land trusts will lead to that land’s protection, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think convincing Congress to designate an area as wilderness will protect that area from oil and gas extraction, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think pointing out to “developers” and to government representatives (who are, as you know, in actuality representing the “developers”) that a piece of land is especially sacred to American Indians will stop the land from being “developed” (in other words, killed), you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think buying fair-trade products will save the earth, or will save indigenous humans (or nonhumans), you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think scads of cash and a nice house will protect you from the current collapse we are only now beginning to perceive, and that only dimly, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think numbing yourself through alcohol, drugs, television, sex, socializing, computer games, sports fanaticism, political fanaticism, or other means will protect you from the current collapse, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think those in power will scruple at torturing and/or killing anyone who significantly opposes them—and many others as well—you might just be delusional, and if you think your acquiescence to their plans will protect you, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think not talking about the horrors of this culture will somehow protect you and your loved ones from these horrors, you might just be a magical thinker (How many of those you love have already died of cancer?).
If you think taking some sort of “enlightened” stance on the murder of the planet, where damage to the earth is not really damage because, for example, heaven is God’s throne and the earth is merely his footstool (which I guess, now that I think about it, means that the earth is where God rests his feet, and heaven is where he rests his, well, we need take that Christian image no further), or because the earth is a place of suffering and Nirvana is where the real action takes place (or doesn’t, depending on your definition of Nirvana), or because the sun will someday eat up the earth, or because the “planet turns itself over and some biota is lost but new life begins/grows/reconstitutes itself,” or because the Earth is too powerful to be destroyed, and so on, will somehow protect you from the current collapse, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you don’t care about the collapse or otherwise don’t fight to protect the planet from this culture’s rapacity because you’re benefiting from the economic and social system that is killing the planet, you are beneath contempt.
If you don’t care about the collapse or otherwise don’t fight to protect the planet from this culture’s rapacity because you’re benefiting from the economic and social system that is killing the planet, the world would be better off had you never been born, or having been born, if you were now to die. This is not a threat, but a simple statement of fact, a syllogism so obvious it’s almost tautological.
If you think using so-called alternative energies will stop this culture from killing the planet, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think the proper course of action through the collapse is merely to protect yourself and your own human family, then you leave me shaking my head at your self-centeredness and lack of gratitude toward this planet that (or rather, who) gave and continues to give you and your family life.
If you think not acknowledging that war is being—and has long-since been—waged against the natural world will stop this culture from waging that war—“Oh, you shouldn’t use that language because it’s too violent and divisive”—then you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think you can fight evil with good thoughts (or, as Peace Pilgrim put it, “When there is no attack but instead good influences are brought to bear upon the situation, not only does the evil tend to fade away, but the evil-doer tends to be transformed”), you are most definitely delusional and a magical thinker. Worse, you are acting in direct support of the evil-doer—acting as an ally to the evil-doer—because you are telling the evil-doer’s victims to do precisely what the evil-doer wants them to do: not resist, and to provide “good influences” to the evil-doer. That would have worked great with Hitler, would it not? And Ted Bundy? Forget imprisoning or killing him, just bring your good influence to him—love him enough—and he will be transformed! Hallelujah! Now, back to reality. This whole line of thinking that Peace Pilgrim was promoting is insupportable, codependent, emotionally unhealthy, ridiculous, and just plain inaccurate. It is typical of the absurd, inaccurate clichés so often thrown out by pacifists (and which should then be thrown out by the rest of us). It is, frankly, the worst advice one can give to one who is threatened by an evil-doer. It is a recipe for further victimization. It is precisely the advice that any abuser, any narcissist, any sociopath, would want potential victims to follow.
If you think you need not stop abusers or exploiters because “karma will get them in the end,” then you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think visualizing salmon rushing up a stream—while assiduously avoiding blowing the fuck out of dams, halting industrial logging, halting industrial fishing, halting industrial agriculture, halting the murder of the oceans, halting global warming, and so on—will save salmon, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think global warming, which is caused by the actions of the industrial economy, can be halted without halting the industrial economy, you might just be a magical thinker, and it’s possible you‘re either a member of the eco-intelligentsia or a policy maker.
If you think global warming, which is caused by burning oil and gas, can be halted without halting the burning of oil and gas, you might just be a magical thinker.
If you think participating in carbon offset schemes, using “clean coal™” technologies, acting on “free-market environmentalism™,” “natural capitalism™,” or whatever other scams are put forward to give us the illusion of making change while perpetuating the same mindset and same system that are killing the planet, will somehow stop this culture from killing the planet, you might just be a magical thinker, and, as above, might even be a member of the eco-intelligentsia or a policy maker.
If you think the hundredth monkey story—where, once a certain numerical threshold of people have heard of some idea or learned some new ability, that idea or ability suddenly and magically spreads to the entire population—is anything other than new age bullshit, designed, once again (as so much in this culture is), to give us the illusion of making change while giving us an excuse not to make change, not to act decisively to protect the earth, will somehow stop this culture from killing the planet, you might just be a magical thinker.
The hundredth monkey story has been debunked thoroughly and repeatedly enough that only the most tenacious of the magical thinkers can still cling to it. So these days, those too terrified to effectively act have had to come up with another allegory (which they also claim is real), this one even more absurd than the hundredth monkey, yet with the advantage of being “cellular,” which not only sounds more “scientific” and “fundamental” than a monkey story, but is also—even better!—completely beyond the ability of most people to verify with their own eyes.
The new story is of the transformation of caterpillars into butterflies through what they call “imaginal cells.” This allegory was popularized by Elisabet Sahtouris, whose work, according to her website, “shows the relevance of biological systems [sic] to organizational design in business, government and global trade.” She gives talks on such topics as, Why biology is good for business; How organic models can meet corporate needs; How quality of life and profits can improve together; and The Internet: self-organizing system and key to human evolution. You can see why both New Agers and corporate sponsors nuzzle up to her. It’s the same old McDonough message of attempting to naturalize industrialism, except this time she doesn’t even bother to include native grasses.
Sahtouris insists, as do so many New Agers and Green Businesspeople, that, “The Globalization of humanity is a natural, biological, evolutionary process.”
231Once again, she’s trying to naturalize—justify—this culture’s destructive activities. Further, this statement of course repeats the racist and imperialist notion of cultural maturation leading inevitably to this culture’s transformation into some greater state. Further still, it ignores ecological reality, and ignores what is most central to every sustainable indigenous culture: place. Two impolite words for “globalization” are genocide and ecocide in that globalization is by definition a singular society across the entire world (which means it has eliminated significant cultural differences), and is by definition not based on place (which means it will never be sustainable). By now we should all know this, and more of us would know this if there weren’t always too many people like Sahtouris ever-too-ready to tell us these lies that too many of us believe. Capitalism—and more broadly industrial civilization—is based on globalization. Every traditional indigenous person I have ever spoken with at length has emphasized their deep (and often violent) opposition to globalization.
Now to the allegory. As Sahtouris says, “If you see the old system as a caterpillar crunching its way through the eco-system [sic], eating up to three hundred times its weight in a single day, bloating itself until it just can’t function anymore, and then going to sleep with its skin hardening into a chrysalis. What happens in its body is that little imaginal disks (as they’re called by biologists) begin to appear in the body of the caterpillar and its immune system attacks them. But they keep coming up stronger and they start to link with each other. As they connect, as they link with each other, they mature into fully-fledged cells and more and more of them aggregate until the immune system of the caterpillar just can’t function any more. At that point the body of the caterpillar melts into a nutritive soup that can feed the butterfly.
“I love this metaphor because it shows us why, first of all, we who want to change the world [we’ve been through this too many times: the word should be
culture, but she clearly conflates this culture with the whole world: how’s that for narcissism?] are co-existing with the old system for a while and why there’s no point in attacking the old system because you know the caterpillar is unsustainable so it’s going to die [and of course take most or all of the world with it, but why should we let life on the planet get in the way of a stirring though absurd metaphor] What we have to focus on is ‘can we build a viable butterfly?’”
232Ah, so we finally get to the point, which is the same fucking point these people make every fucking time: “There’s no point in attacking the old system.” Anything, anything, to justify not stopping this system. Anything, anything, to keep people from actually fighting back to defend those they love. Anything, anything, to justify cowardice.
There’s really nothing new here: it’s nothing more than a New Age retelling of the same old Christian rapture story: things suck now, but if you remain meek enough, if you don’t fight back, if you’re Christian enough, if you accept what this culture does to you and to the planet (which after all is natural since caterpillars are so voracious), then someday Jesus—or in this version the Great Butterfly—will magically appear and make things all better.
Bullshit.
Further, as hinted before, this metaphor of the caterpillar and the butterfly is extraordinarily racist, in that it states explicitly that this culture’s consumption of the planet is natural. The metaphor’s point is the notion that this culture’s destructiveness is the necessary prelude to a transformation to some seemingly better state—this implies that traditional indigenous peoples are stuck in some primitive or immature caterpillar phase. I’m stunned that so few people can see the obvious ethnocentrism and racism in that progressive perspective. But perhaps I shouldn’t be so stunned: people will do anything, say anything, to avoid looking at the fact that this culture is killing the planet, killing all who are wild and free, including indigenous humans.
And finally, this metaphor has no basis in physical reality. I asked Aric, who evidently remembers more from biology labs than I, because he responded, “The myth, though popularized by Sahtouris, originates from a book by Norie Huddle, called Butterfly: A Tiny Tale of Great Transformation , published in 1990 by Huddle Books (i.e., probably self-published). Huddle isn’t an entomologist, or even a scientist, so I don’t know where she got this stuff. Anyway, her metaphor was featured again in the Institute of Noetic Science Magazine in August 2000. Of course the Institute for Noetic Science is a new age outfit, dedicated to keeping people working on their enlightenment instead of actually doing anything to stop the murder of the planet.
“In reality, the driving tissues behind metamorphosis are ‘imaginal discs’—though presumably individual cells in that disc could be called ‘imaginal cells.’ These imaginal discs are small structures already present in the caterpillar—they don’t just arise. And the immune system doesn’t attack them (at least, not in a healthy individual). The discs are essentially little clusters of stem cells. During metamorphosis, most of the body undergoes apoptosis—‘programmed cell death’—and dissolves. The imaginal discs differentiate, absorb the liberated nutrients, and ‘telescope’ out into adult structures like legs, wings, antennae, eyes, and genitals.
So instead of the imaginal cells acting as agents of change in the body, the rest of the cells essentially commit suicide for the benefit of the imaginal tissues (and of course the new agers don’t really want to delve too deeply into this aspect of their metaphor, although I’m sure polar bears, pygmy smelt, mountain gorillas, and more or less every other wild being would be delighted if members of this culture committed mass suicide for the benefit of the rest of the world: hmmmm, do you think we can talk the New Agers into promoting this new myth?). In fact, according to one study, the development of imaginal tissues is not suppressed by the immune system, but by something called ‘juvenile hormone,’ that prevents the caterpillar from developing into an adult prematurely. Without that hormone, imaginal tissues will develop even if the caterpillar is starving to death.
“And of course, imaginal cells have the same genome as the rest of the caterpillar. They don’t have some ‘butterfly genome,’ because the butterfly and the caterpillar have the same genome, with different genes active.
“As a side note, the name, imaginal, doesn’t come from imaginary. It comes from imago, which is a stage in the lepidopteran life cycle.
“It’s stupid myth, of course, but why would we expect people who promote these myths to have even the most rudimentary understanding of biology, or for that matter, the most rudimentary understanding of real life?”
So, if you think that this butterfly metaphor is anything other than racist new age bullshit, designed, once again, to give us the illusion of making change while giving us an excuse not to make change, not to act decisively to protect the earth, will somehow stop this culture from killing the planet, you might just be a magical thinker.
How about three more?
First, “Baring Witness”: “On November 12th, forty-five women in West Marin County, Northern California dared and bared all in protest against impending war. Lying down naked on a field in the rain, they formed the word PEACE with their bodies, spelling out their convictions for all to see.
“The photograph of their protest became the shot seen around the world, once it hit the news wires and the Internet. It has aroused passion and inspired women and men nationwide to take action, speak their minds and express their frustrations at not being heard by those in power. Many of these new activists have never taken part in a protest before. Some have never written an e-mail to anyone about a political issue. Such is the persuasive power of the vulnerability of the naked female body.
“That power is seduction and it may be the deciding factor in creating support for peace. . . . As simplistic as it sounds, the movement can make our rulers stop and listen, even if only for a second. That one second could be the difference between their pushing the button and listening to their hearts.”
And more: “It is no accident either that women would choose to get naked for the sake of peace and justice. For Baring Witness is about using the greatest weapon women have, the power of the feminine, the power of our beauty and nakedness to awaken our male leaders and stop them in their tracks. [How insulting—and frankly pornographic—to suggest “the greatest weapon women have” is the “power” of their “beauty and nakedness” to cause the “seduction” of “our male leaders.” What about women’s intelligence? Courage? Fortitude? What about their ability to use their voices to convince? What about their ability to kick the shit out of oppressive motherfuckers? What about the guns they’ve been target-shooting at silhouettes of muggers, rapists, CEOs, politicians, and other oppressors? What about their gifts for painting, drawing, organizing, hacking, singing, bomb-building, lawyering, counseling, teaching, and so on? All of these are lesser weapons than their beauty? Help me understand how this is not the same old pornographic and patriarchal mindset that values women primarily for their bodies, and in fact also considers women’s beauty a weapon to be used against men.] In this way Baring Witness is about heightening the awareness of human vulnerability.
“By risking with our nakedness—our charm and beauty and vulnerability—in service of peace we are exposing the flesh all humans share. We are casting off the old dominant paradigm of aggression and restoring the power of the feminine to its rightful place as the protector of life. [If we’re going to picture a naked woman as an agent of change, what about a naked woman carrying an uzi? Or would that be too scary? Would that be too threatening to those in power (and more to the point, too threatening to members of the pseudoresistance)? Hell, if we’re serious about bringing down systems of oppressive power, and not merely causing the “seduction” of “our male leaders” (and reinforcing pornographic ideals), let’s just drop the nudity and keep the uzi.] It is time for women to deter the men in their lives from violent acts, as nurturers, as guardians of our families and as voices of reason.”
233If you think taking pictures of naked women formed in the word peace will stop those in power from waging war (against humans or the planet), you might just be a magical thinker.
Evidently getting naked and taking pictures isn’t quite cutting it so far as stopping US military aggression, so these same organizers have raised the stakes in their struggle against war. Their new campaign (which of course receives lots of press) is about having orgasms for peace. On winter solstice, December 22, as many people as possible are supposed to have orgasms simultaneously, and this will, according to the theory, somehow stop or slow war.
From the website: “Our minds influence Matter and Quantum Energy fields, so by concentrating our thoughts during and after The Big O on peace and partnership, the combination of high orgasmic energy combined with mindful intention for peace could reduce global levels of violence, hatred and fear.”
Here’s what they’re aiming for: “To effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible instantaneous surge of human biological, mental and spiritual energy.”
But wait! The orgasms are not supposed to be merely on that day, but specifically at 6:08 a.m. (Greenwich Mean Time), which “means that Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Palestine and Israel get some choice morning hours. A gift with the intention of peace from
Global-O.org.”
Iraqi men, put down your weapons and pick up your penises! Women, stroke your clitori! Whacking off will be far more effective in driving the invaders from your land than fighting back!
Yeah, right.
One last note from the website: this is the second year, because “Yes, after its overwhelming success in 2006, the Global O is back!”
234Overwhelming success? I’m guessing the measures of “overwhelming success” do not include: a) whether the US war machine has been stopped from murdering people all over the world; and b) whether the industrial machine has been stopped from murdering the planet. I’m guessing that instead the measures of success include: a) how good their orgasms for peace felt; b) how good they got to feel about having their orgasms for peace; c) how much press they got; and d) whether they got enough additional foundation funding to continue their orgasm activism.
And finally, for those who find even orgasms too much work, there is the following:
“The Green Circle presents . . . The 9 p.m. Earth Watch.
“When: Every Night—Ongoing—Virtual Location.
“Where: Whately, Massachusetts.
“Nightly Meditation to Heal the Earth.
“Event Details: Meditate with us on Healing the Earth.
“Envision a clean, verdant planet with plenty of Oxygen and not so much carbon dioxide . . . healthy animals and plants, lots of tall trees, thriving rainforest, clean water, refrozen polar ice caps, reduced emissions, cooler temperatures and a long future.
“Feel the love for this beautiful home of ours coursing through you.
“Tell everyone of positive spirit who[m] you know to join in, too. [Lord knows we wouldn’t want anyone of negative spirit to crush our mellow, and Lord knows we wouldn’t want any anger to mess with our vibe.] The more, the better—if the minds are joyful and optimistic. [Baring Witness had this same stricture, writing (with bold face in their original): “We have the choice of continuing on the present path of destruction and dominance by a powerful few or, without blame, stepping towards a new structure. . . .” What is it with these people that they are so afraid of anger, and that they don’t even want us to assign blame to those who are blameworthy?] We can make this happen if enough of us join our vision and our wills!
“Don’t get too distracted by wondering how the healing will be achieved. [By all means don’t get “distracted” by silly little things like what we’re supposed to do about it or how we’re going to go about it: don’t get too distracted by the fact that you’ve got two feet on the ground and you need oxygen to live; don’t get too distracted by the fact that doing nothing won’t accomplish anything: gotta protect the mellow!] Just picture the end result desired, and as with our other magic, the path towards it will automatically be generated. It’s not too late, if we all take action. [Action? Is this the pathetic level to which our pseudoresistance has fallen, where now sitting on your ass and thinking positive thoughts is considered action?] Be the 100th Monkey! Help spread awareness of the devastating ecological disaster [s] that threaten our planet.
“So Mote It Be!
“Event Location: Your Personal Temple on the Astral Plane in Whately
“Event TIME Details: 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm Eastern Time
“Directions: Go to your favorite mediation place and sit or lie down. Try to be calm and focused. Enter trance state and rendezvous with us. Think of it as a psychic conference call. If you can make it, dial in. If you can’t, no big deal. Some of us will always be there, every night during this hour. Hopefully, more and more of us as time passes.”
235In one form or another, nearly all of our so-called resistance consists of magical thinking.
It’s all about learned helplessness. The person perceives a lack of real control over an unpleasant environment. Except instead of being passive, the person engages in meaningless action under the false belief that the action actually affects the environment. It’s a way of coping.
The world doesn’t need for us to cope with our feelings of helplessness. The world needs for us to fight back.
In learned helplessness experiments, a minority of subjects manage not to become helpless. Some psychologists have attributed this to the ability of that minority to identify the source of the problem as outside of themselves. I think that’s what has to happen with magical thinking—people have to realize that actions are not the same as thoughts, and that the problem is not primarily inside of them. Otherwise the pseudoactions taken will just be mechanisms to displace responsibility.